Transport of oxygen and/or water through laminated or encapsulated materials and their subsequent attack of an inner material within a device represents two of the more common degradation mechanisms associated with many devices including, for example, light-emitting devices (OLED devices), thin-film sensors, evanescent waveguide sensors, food containers and medicine containers. For a detailed discussion about the problems associated with the penetration of oxygen and water into the inner layers (cathode and electro-luminescent materials) of an OLED device, reference is made to the following documents:    Aziz, H., Popovic, Z. D., Hu, N. X., Hor, A. H., and Xu, G. “Degradation Mechanism of Small Molecule-Based Organic Light-Emitting Devices”, Science, 283, pp. 1900-1902, (1999).    Burrows, P. E., Bulovic., V., Forrest, S. R., Sapochak, L. S., McCarty, D. M., Thompson, M. E. “Reliability and Degradation of Organic Light Emitting Devices”, Applied Physics Letters, 65(23), pp. 2922-2924.    Kolosov, D., et al., Direct observation of structural changes in organic light emitting devices during degradation. Journal of Applied Physics, 1001. 90(7).    Liew, F. Y., et al., Investigation of the sites of dark spots in organic light-emitting devices. Applied Physics Letters, 1000. 77(17).    Chatham, H., “Review: Oxygen Diffusion Barrier Properties of Transparent Oxide Coatings on Polymeric Substrates”, 78, pp. 1-9, (1996).
It is well known that unless something is done to minimize the penetration of oxygen and water into an OLED device, then their operating lifetime will be severely limited. As a result, much effort has been expended to minimize the penetration of oxygen and water into an OLED device so as to help drive the OLED operation towards a 40 kilo-hour lifetime, the level generally regarded as necessary so OLED devices can overtake older device technologies such as LCD displays as discussed in the following document:    Forsythe, Eric, W., “Operation of Organic-Based Light-Emitting Devices, in Society for Information Device (SID) 40th anniversary Seminar Lecture Notes, Vol. 1, Seminar M5, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Mass., May 20 and 24, (1002).
The more prominent efforts to date that have been performed to help extend the lifetime of OLED devices include gettering, encapsulating and using various sealing techniques. In fact, one common way for sealing an OLED device today is to apply and heat-treat (or UV treat) different types of epoxies, inorganic materials and/or organic materials to form a seal on the OLED device. For example, Vitex Systems manufactures and sells a coating under the brand name of Barix™ which is a composite based approach where alternate layers of inorganic materials and organic materials are used to seal the OLED device. Although these types of seals provide some level of hermetic behavior, they can be very expensive and there are still many instances in which they have failed over time to prevent the diffusion of oxygen and water into the OLED device.
To address this sealing problem, the assignee of the present invention has developed several different sealing techniques in which sealing materials (e.g., low liquidus temperature inorganic materials, Sn2+-containing inorganic oxide materials) are used to hermetically seal an OLED device (or other type of device)(see the aforementioned U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 11/207,691 and 11/803,512). Although these sealing techniques and sealing materials work well to hermetically seal an OLED device (or other types of devices) there is still a desire to improve upon these sealing techniques so that one can decrease the time it takes to hermetically seal an OLED device (or other type of device). This particular need and other needs have been satisfied by the present invention.